Newsletters: Newsbites

SANS NewsBites is a semiweekly high-level executive summary of the most important news articles that have been published on computer security during the last week. Each news item is very briefly summarized and includes a reference on the web for detailed information, if possible.

Spend five minutes per week to keep up with the high-level perspective of all the latest security news. New issues are delivered free every Tuesday and Friday.

- --Threat Hunting & Incident Response Summit & Training | New Orleans, LA | April 12-19, 2016 | Will you be the hunter or the prey? Two days of Summit talks and 6 courses; including the new FOR578 Cyber Threat Intelligence course. http://www.sans.org/u/dgM

Report: Businesses Reluctant to Report Attacks (March 3, 2016)

According to a report from the Institute of Directors and Barclays bank, many organizations do not report cyberattacks to law enforcement. Just 28 percent of cyberattacks are reported. The report also found that while most business leaders believe cybersecurity is important, just half have established plans to protect themselves from attacks. -http://www.zdnet.com/article/businesses-are-still-scared-of-reporting-cyberattacks-to-the-police/[Editor's Note (Pescatore): I think the 28% lines up pretty well with how many businesses see actual shareholder/customer value in notifying law enforcement. That fraction might change if ransomware attacks continue to be effective. Involving law enforcement could help to regain access to locked/encrypted data or systems - *if* law enforcement gets the budget to increase staff and skills. I'd rather see enterprises have effective defense and backup processes to thwart ransomware, than to depend on external help to restore operations *after* disruption. ]

Windows 10 Will Add APT Protection (March 1 and 2, 2016)

At the RSA conference in San Francisco, Microsoft revealed that it would be adding protection against advanced persistent threats (APTs) to Windows 10. The service, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, detects anomalous system activity. It is currently in private beta on about 500,000 systems. -http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2016/03/windows-10-adding-apt-protection-heres-why-s-big-deal/126372/?oref=ng-channelriver-http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/windows-defender-advanced-threat-protection-uses-cloud-power-to-figure-out-youve-been-pwned/[Editor's Note (Pescatore): Notice you don't see Apple or Google rolling out this kind of post-incident detection and response services for iOS or Android. Instead they continue to focus on maturing App Store/Google Play to raise the bar against malicious apps, support near continuous and nearly transparent updates vs. lumpy/monthly/disruptive patch releases, etc., and continue to reduce attack surface and make malware a well bounded (but still existing) problem. Microsoft seems to be saying "security will pretty much be the same when you move to Windows 10 but we will include more functions to tell you more quickly when your Windows PC has been penetrated." This is too depressingly similar to back in 2003 when Microsoft decided to buy an anti-virus vendor and join the AV world, rather than focus on making game changing security leaps in Windows 7, which was in early development at the time. ]

John Pescatore was Vice President at Gartner Inc. for fourteen years. He became a director of the SANS Institute in 2013. He has worked in computer and network security since 1978 including time at the NSA and the U.S. Secret Service.

Shawn Henry is president of CrowdStrike Services. He retired as FBI Executive Assistant Director responsible for all criminal and cyber programs and investigations worldwide, as well as international operations and the FBI's critical incident response.

Suzanne Vautrinot was Commander of the 24th Air Force (AF Cyber) and now sits on the board of directors of Wells Fargo and several other major organizations.

Ed Skoudis is co-founder of CounterHack, the nation's top producer of cyber ranges, simulations, and competitive challenges, now used from high schools to the Air Force. He is also author and lead instructor of the SANS Hacker Exploits and Incident Handling course, and Penetration Testing course.

Michael Assante was Vice President and Chief Security Officer at NERC, led a key control systems group at Idaho National Labs, and was American Electric Power's CSO. He now leads the global cyber skills development program at SANS for power, oil & gas and other critical infrastructure industries.

Mark Weatherford is Chief Cybersecurity Strategist at vArmour and the former Deputy Under Secretary of Cybersecurity at the US Department of Homeland Security.

Stephen Northcutt teaches advanced courses in cyber security management; he founded the GIAC certification and was the founding President of STI, the premier skills-based cyber security graduate school, www.sans.edu.

Dr. Johannes Ullrich is Chief Technology Officer of the Internet Storm Center and Dean of the Faculty of the graduate school at the SANS Technology Institute.

William Hugh Murray is an executive consultant and trainer in Information Assurance and Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Sean McBride is Director of Analysis and co-founder of Critical Intelligence, and, while at Idaho National Laboratory, he initiated the situational awareness effort that became the ICS-CERT.

Rob Lee is the SANS Institute's top forensics instructor and director of the digital forensics and incident response research and education program at SANS (computer-forensics.sans.org).

Tom Liston is member of the Cyber Network Defense team at UAE-based Dark Matter. He is a Handler for the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center and co-author of the book Counter Hack Reloaded.

Jake Williams is a SANS course author and the founder of Rendition Infosec, with experience securing DoD, healthcare, and ICS environments.

Dr. Eric Cole is an instructor, author and fellow with The SANS Institute. He has written five books, including Insider Threat and he is a founder with Secure Anchor Consulting.

Mason Brown is one of a very small number of people in the information security field who have held a top management position in a Fortune 50 company (Alcoa). He leads SANS' efforts to raise the bar in cybersecurity education around the world.

David Hoelzer is the director of research & principal examiner for Enclave Forensics and a senior fellow with the SANS Technology Institute.

Gal Shpantzer is a trusted advisor to CSOs of large corporations, technology startups, Ivy League universities and non-profits specializing in critical infrastructure protection. Gal created the Security Outliers project in 2009, focusing on the role of culture in risk management outcomes and contributes to the Infosec Burnout project.

Eric Cornelius is Director of Critical Infrastructure and ICS at Cylance, and earlier served as deputy director and chief technical analyst for the Control Systems Security Program at the US Department of Homeland Security.

Alan Paller is director of research at the SANS Institute.

Brian Honan is an independent security consultant based in Dublin, Ireland.

David Turley is SANS operations manager and serves as production manager and final editor on SANS NewsBites.

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